Blueprints used to drop directly from a defeated boss but has been changed in Update 10.3, making it a reward after completing the mission instead. This may extend farming time by half, as opposed to simply seeing your reward and deciding whether or not to stay; however, players do not have to worry about searching for blueprint orbs following the defeat of a boss any longer.

Purchase vs Earned

Building from a blueprint takes much more time than simply purchasing the item from the market. Normally you have to buy or earn the blueprint, gather the resources, gather the credits to build the item, and then wait for the build time to complete to claim the item. The market will give you an the item right away for the cost of Platinum.

Once a Tenno has the blueprint and all required components, they can begin crafting the Warframe. The crafting takes 72 hours and costs thousands of credits. Crafting can be rushed to instantly finish the Warframe for 50. Tenno crafting a new Warframe will need to have an available inventory slot to claim the new Warframe, which can be purchased for 20.

Most Warframes have alternate helmets that can be acquired to change their appearance and in some cases modify their stats. The Helmets can be purchased from the market for 75 or the blueprints can be obtained through Alert Missions. Developers at Digital Extremes have stated that alternate helmets acquired now will not have statistic changes attached to them; however, existing helmets with statistic changes will remain as Arcane Helmets with this change in policy.